Tag: Orwellian reminders

Bharat Bhushan: Nervous government explores ways to 'manage' media

The leaking of the alleged Report of Group of Ministers (GoM) on Government Communications is an exceptional event for a government that prides itself in being successfully opaque. Reminiscent of McCarthyism, the report suggests “neutralising” journalists who write against the government and spread “false narratives”. An incredible proposal from an establishment journalist suggests that journalists… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Nervous government explores ways to 'manage' media

Dilip

George Orwell Reviews Mein Kampf: “He Envisages a Horrible Brainless Empire” (1940)

Published in New English Weekly, 21 March 1940 It is a sign of the speed at which events are moving that Hurst and Blackett’s unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf, published only a year ago, is edited from a pro-Hitler angle. The obvious intention of the translator’s preface and notes is to tone down the book’s ferocity and… Read More George Orwell Reviews Mein Kampf: “He Envisages a Horrible Brainless Empire” (1940)

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'Endure, everyone': final messages from Hong Kong democracy figures before detention

On Sunday, 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy figures were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion over accusations they organised unofficial primary elections aiming to “paralyse” the government by winning a majority and blocking legislation. The election was ultimately postponed for a year, purportedly because of the pandemic. All face terms of up to life in prison if convicted.… Read More 'Endure, everyone': final messages from Hong Kong democracy figures before detention

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Nivedita Menon: Toolkits of democracy and a paranoid Hindu Rashtra

Let me tell you what the Delhi Police knows. And I do not mean the abstract entity called Delhi Police. I mean every single IPS officer and every constable involved in carrying out the “toolkit investigation.” They know that 22 year old Disha Ravi is not the Prime Mover along with the relatively recently formed… Read More Nivedita Menon: Toolkits of democracy and a paranoid Hindu Rashtra

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Express Editorial: Weaponising an advocacy document to arrest an activist signals paranoia, not democratic power.

Evidence in the in the public domain points to Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old environmental activist, being just that – young and an activist. In an online interview, eight months ago, she talks, in sentences that end with a rising intonation, as if her sentences are questions, about causes ranging from climate change to feminism. Evidence… Read More Express Editorial: Weaponising an advocacy document to arrest an activist signals paranoia, not democratic power.

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Bharat Bhushan: No one critical of the government seems to be innocent any longer / Delhi Police arrests 22-year-old environmental activist, calls her key to foreign hand

‘Once crime was as solitary as a cry of protest; now it is as universal as science. Yesterday it was put on trial; today it determines the law’: Albert Camus, The Rebel        The Maharashtra government needs to order an inquiry into the planting of false evidence on Bhima-Koregaon accused Rona Jacob Wilson. It owes this to… Read More Bharat Bhushan: No one critical of the government seems to be innocent any longer / Delhi Police arrests 22-year-old environmental activist, calls her key to foreign hand

Dilip

Book review: Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev – Putinism and the oil-boom years

The war in eastern Ukraine, rumbling into life once more after the collapse of an unsteady ceasefire, has created a widening breach between Russia and the west, with relations now worse than they have been in decades. In Russia, the hardening of the domestic consensus behind Putin has been helped along by the media’s increasingly strident nationalism, and by a… Read More Book review: Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev – Putinism and the oil-boom years

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Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear / Putin Resorts to Jailing Journalists for Retweeting Jokes

Navalny, who was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison earlier this week, said in a statement posted on his Instagram account that “iron doors slammed behind my back with a deafening sound, but I feel like a free man. Because I feel confident I’m right. Thanks to your support. Thanks to my… Read More Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear / Putin Resorts to Jailing Journalists for Retweeting Jokes

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Book review: Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening. By Steve Bloomfield

This Is Not Propaganda is an exploration of the wreckage of liberal democracy and a search for the signs of its revival. What can save us? Reading, for a start. In Beijing, Pomeranstev meets Angela Wu, who researches emerging technology and cultural change at New York University. She travelled across China interviewing readers of a blogging site called… Read More Book review: Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening. By Steve Bloomfield

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Umberto Eco on Eternal Fascism, or Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt (1995)

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are… Read More Umberto Eco on Eternal Fascism, or Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt (1995)

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